fell so crystel into the air
by suzybishops
Summary: "I have long stopped asking why the mad do mad things." —American Horror Story


**jottings;** beta'd by in the jungle dances, and it's just real (han is wondeful. you need a beta, she's your gal. i sounded so old timey. also emmy, who you should know is way to incredible to not have hunter parrish). inspired by edgar allan poe's short story the tell-tale heart and the movie shutter island. p.s. i'm obsessed with leo tolstoy's anna karenina. legit. and you should be too :3 i have no idea how this came about. i stared at my blank computer screen for like an hour, drank some coke zero, and then— this happened. sorry. too much angst, i know. werid too. and terrible. enjoy, and don't favorite without reviewing, please!

.

.

* * *

><p><strong>fell so crystel into the air<strong>

Massie lives inside a glass house, with white paper hats, and cracked tea cups on trays. She has maids, and acclaimed doctors, chefs— all at her beck and call. She sees things— things other people don't see, a murky black figure, trapped, but roaming free— contradicting her, once she thinks she's figured them out. She hears voices, biting and tortured— they sort of remind her of Edgar Allan Poe. Truly a disturbed kind.

She deems her life worthy of one of Dorothy Gale's, struggling to get home— outside of this shriveled up house, with stark people that smell like lead, and chills her ghostly arms.

Massie imagines herself: clicking her alchemist heels, a shimmering claret, her un-kept fishtail braids swishing on the bare skin of her collarbone, threaded with silk ribbons, her bottom eyelids filthy wet— "There's no place like home!"

But who, oh who, is the Wicked Witch of the West?

.

.

(Massie Block is patient 12394,

Ward C, Westchester Asylum.)

.

.

When Massie sleeps (not even the prescribed sleeping pills can succumb her to slumber), she sleeps alone.

When insomnia decides to take a well-earned break, and she can corral at a few miniscule hours of sleep— done in the earliest of hours of course, around dawn usually. The sun must be peeking up, _positively must_— no inky blackness to find her, slipping under her too-stretched-out skin, a deep violet massacre forming promptly.

The large loops of black around her wet_wet_ eyelids, she pretends they're like a mask— a superhero she is.

When she finally is forced up for lunch (she wasn't sleeping, simply counting sheep); she hears from the gossip group (the girls with stringy hair, crooked teeth, and still think they're perfect while being in a _fucking_ prison for the mad)— that a new patient has come to stay, one not many know about. Massie takes this piece of knowledge, tucking it away in her truly heinous, stiff, cotton pants. Care to guess what color they are?

(White— as frosty as the sweetest cocaine.)

.

.

The new patient comes, causing quite the ruckus in the dining hall.

He sits with his head in his calloused hands, the abhorrent supposedly edible food sits untouched, his eyes numb, his mouth an indifferent line. Massie gets a twinkle in her eyes— he just needs a friend, yearns for someone who cares.

"Hello," her voice is spirited— bright even, "What's your name?"

His resounded silence answers Massie. The foam of his fork, flicks the tray.

"Well, my name is Massie. Massieline Elizabeth Block," she smiles cheerfully, a burst of sunshine in sterile white, "Pleased to meet you, too."

She looks around, the gossip mongers, tuning their ears in for a slip of data. (Is he a _murderer_, a supposed _psychic_, the next _Harry Potter_?)

She leans in, as if she will tell a coveted secret, a soft grin still on her lips— she looks like a doll, eyes wide, "My parents gave their child away without naming her. They let some insufferable person— who probably chomps their gum too loud, has a little too much weed, and gets paid minimum wage at the adoption home— they let her name me. Isn't that... just crazy?" She lets out a tinkling laugh at her irony. He doesn't laugh with her. "Who names someone... Massieline? Who does that?"

He looks back up at her, ocher irises screwing into hers, staring at her for a long minute; his lips are chapped, with little cuts, bleeding with tiny red dots.

He says one word comatosely: "Derrick."

Derrick offers her a forkful of mystery meat, and she feels understandably underwhelmed— she beams nevertheless.

.

.

Massie likes her therapist, contrary to everyone else existing in Westchester Asylum.

"Massie, why do you think you're insane?"

Dr. Loni has short gray streaked hair, is very flamboyant, and is fond of chocolate shaped like teddy-bears.

She's not crazy. She reads _Anna Karenina_, likes the smell of daisies and paints her nails bubble-gum pink. Massie is not_ crazy_.

"Why do you think you're insane?" She answers a question with a question.

Dr. Loni smiles, as if he's almost placated with her sincere daftness, "I don't think I'm insane." He sets his pen and pad down, the moss of his eyes, clashing with his patterned Santa Claus tie. "Anyone coming for the holidays?"

Massie stares at the barred window. It's snowing. The imperfectly-portioned flakes falling steadily on the outside window sill, a timed jumble, slosh in a mess at the bottom.

"No. No one's coming."

Massie really dislikes her therapist.

.

.

She feels as though Derrick's eyes are more than what everyone else sees. She can see differently. They seem blank, like he is nothing and the insanity is everything. Like he is lost and never going to be found, because it is just easier to be that way.

Massie sees past the elapsed dull brown, forcibly subdued thoughts filtering quickly. The bones in his face slightly contort, as if in pain.

She can hear her heartbeat, erratic tempo jostling against her frayed ribcage, _b-b-boom, b-b-boom, b-b-boom_. It's wildly coherent.

Derrick has eyes that roar, but not louder than her heartbeat.

(He is not Tin Man, you see.)

.

.

Massie sits on a beanbag, mouthing the words of a dog-eared novel, while Derrick sits in the window-seat, eyes not daring to blink, drying briskly.

He asks (a rarity, you understand), hot, sugary breath on her paper cheek, "Why'd you get sent here?"

She thumbs through the pages, pressing light pecks— no one would even call it a kiss— on marked up lines, and words in margins.

Massie smiles, but it doesn't gleam in her eyes, "Oh, Derrick, I admitted myself here, yes— I did," she rambles, blowing on her unpainted nails. "I tried to kill someone, and then tried to kill myself."

He doesn't nod, or turn to stare at her.

"I'm not insane, you know," she repeats the words she has said before.

He stretches, a sliver of gaunt skin revealed; she swoons a bit, in that nonsense way of hers. He responds softly, "I know," before he steals her book, losing her page un-regrettably.

He recognizes her, feels as though he has skimmed a piece of Massie Block, the confused girl, who knows more than she lets on. She is flawed, but she is kind, too— classical in pale ivories, and dark charcoals.

.

.

Her mouth moves, spitting the first thing out of her mouth in months that makes her feel extremely dark, the depths of unspoken ebony— "The world is so colorblind, why is that, Dr. Loni? I wish to know."

.

.

Christmas comes, parents, siblings, friends— all visiting graciously. The padded cells garnished with festive reefs, and the lone smell of pine, conjoining with the left-over hospital stench. The radio's shrill tone is singing clichéd holiday songs.

Massie sings along, quite loudly actually. Till her ears are buzzing, simultaneously with the strong thrum of her brain, her scalp vibrating. Christmas never has been a good time for her. It reminds her, lavishly telling her that she has no one, as lovely as she tries to be.

_(baby, it's cold outside)_

Derrick watches her, his lips turned into a frown, small and quaint as it is.

He takes two trays of tepid turkey and clumped mash potatoes, hoping to convey his thanks for her— that she has him.

They eat outside in the snow, brimming of frost on their eyelashes, and noses as red as Rudolph's.

She has _someone_.

.

.

"Do you know how to dance?" She's eating delicate chocolates given to her by Dr. Loni (approved by the dour nurses), a smudge on the corner of her mouth.

He entertains the thought of licking it off, quickly dismissed by the words she's spoken.

He answers back with sharp shake of the head.

She gasps, melodramatically, as if it is a crime not to know how to dance, "Well, I have to teach you then."

Massie drags him over, positioning their arms correctly around each other. Her lips are puckered, her eyes intense— he easily finds amusement in her seriousness around the art of dancing. Surprisingly their movements are fluid, he mimics her actions perfectly, her fractural legs moving in-sync with his. It's almost— almost as if—

"You liar!" She stops short, a half-frown, half-smile on her face. "You said you didn't know how to dance!"

His eyes are bright, brighter than she's ever seen, shining scintillating under brittle eyelashes. The tip of his ears burn red. Derrick is embarrassed.

He mumbles a breath away from silent, "My mother taught me. She said, every boy should know how to dance properly."

They continue dancing, a silence collapsing over them.

"Derrick— why don't you ever talk about your mother?" Massie inquires in hesitation.

His lips quiver a tiny bit, his only tell of guilt, "She died."

Her limp, sorrel hair falling as a half-hearted curtain around her eyes, "Oh," she holds her back straighter.

"Derrick? I've always wanted to dance in the rain. Maybe, one day, we can."

He grins breathlessly, his eyes water generously.

.

.

Derrick forgets her birthday.

Four days after it, he brings her a half-melted ice cream sandwich, and a thoughtful smile.

She throws it in the garbage when she knows he's looking.

Inexplicably, an irregular hole shapes in his heart chambers.

He finds it hard to keep from screaming.

.

.

Massie is different.

Not like she wasn't already different, but something is... off. Her smiles are barren, her words a mere whisper, clouded by drowns of muddy water, and lost in her mind, surrounded by pressure, ready to erupt, but she keeps a lid over the metaphorical volcano.

Birthdays are also tough.

.

.

She is walking around (the white is almost too much), hoping to find where she's misplaced her copy of _Anna Karenina_.

There's a howling, and outcry of a woman— with skimpy, dulled blonde, jutted out bones, matchstick legs and discolored, brown eyes.

She is Derrick's— Derrick's mother.

Then, she sees Derrick himself.

Massie hears obscenities, the welted words of, "You killed _my daughter_!_ My_ baby girl, you bastard!" And, "You are despicable— a coward! You deserve to die!" The woman is fighting against the restraints of the (bland- white, white, white) nurses.

He doesn't yell back, but his eyes are black, a flood of moisture layered on the irises.

"_I hate you_." The woman (mother doesn't seem right anymore) screams, coarse, flung at him murderously, before she is injected with a syringe, by an indifferent doctor.

Derrick runs.

.

.

There aren't many places to hide in an Asylum.

Massie finds him outside on an unsteady bench, lying on his back, with his eyes fluttering half on his cheek. She lifts his legs, resting them on her lap, otherwise distracted.

The silence is uncomfortable, and she thinks she should say something quirky and annoying— just something.

"I'm sorry I forgot your birthday," Derrick announces, his nose is wrinkled. "I stole your book. Sorry about that, too."

"It's okay; I didn't even notice it was missing," she lies inconvincibly.

"So, um, I guess—" he interrupts her ramblings.

"Yeah, my mother's not dead," his voice is clear, and weaker than she's ever heard it, "And, I killed my sister," he adds, empty and blurry. He clears his throat. "Her name was Sammi."

It's the most he's ever talked; it disturbs her immensely about how much she wants him to shut up.

"I killed my sister. I killed my sister," he laughs exhaustedly, on the fringe of a maniac, combing through his ragged hair with unsure fingers. "I killed my fucking sister. Like... how does that happen?"

She lets out a gauzy breath of hissed air, "Derrick, you're not— you're," she stumbles over the words, nipping harshly at her bottom lip, "You are not insane."

The sensation of _deja vu_, drapes itself over her skinny arms and legs, folding into her bones.

He grins, and it's almost as if he's high, on exhilaration and sorrow. "Maybe, I am," he rubs his lacerated palms over his mouth. It's funny she never noticed before now. "We're in here, in a fucking asylum. We're mental. They put us in here, because we're a menace to society, right?" His question echoes, in the night. "Seriously, I'm crazy, and you're crazy, and everybody in this fucking place is crazy!" He screams, gasping for the flighty air chaotically.

She clenches on her teeth, chewing on her tongue like a fiend.

"Shut up!" She shrieks, her floundering curls falling on her tiny shoulders. "You're not crazy! I'm not crazy! Just shut up!"

She takes moment to calm her panting.

"Derrick, you're going to be okay. Everything is going to be okay." Massie whispers, holding his head to her chest, the warmth of his body melting into hers. A drizzle dwindles over their heads.

(He is not the Cowardly Lion, you see.)

.

.

They go dancing in the rain, with mud on their bare feet, lips blistered, and tear tracks seeping into their drenched white shirts and pants. They seal their crossed, ebony deep hearts with a drunken kiss.

(He is truly an imperfect dark kind, you see. Chalked in black maybe, but beneath it— rests a plethora of glaring color, all in the most vivid shades, you see.)

.

.

(_i have long stopped asking why the mad do mad things. —american horror story_)


End file.
